Tue early dealings of the Dutch with the princes and natives of Java were ae discreditable as those of any other European nation with weak orientals, They came to the Queen of the Ensteru Archipelago in 1596, and after mach treachery and bloodshed onptared the tive city of Jacatra, near which they founded Batavia, It took them nearly sixty years of perpetual warfare with the natives to establish themselves in largo territories and to become traders on an extensive sonic, But once they had founded Batavia they showed the greatest enterprize in establishing com. morcinl relations,—whiok with them ment trade monopolies—with every part of the Enst, They sent em-assies to the Emperor of Chins, who would nob receive the delegates of the Governor-General of the Datch Enet Indies; and the story of the one of the most amusing eigners with the rulers of this country. They ousted the Portuguese from an, and for nearly two centuries they carried on at Decima the only foreign trade allowed by the jealous Emperors under what were the meanest conditions on which Christian men ever consented to make money, During all this time they where draining Java and her people of money and resources but their experience were not always satisfactory. hey had times of depression apparently as severe as those they are now suffering and certainly og much complained about. From their first occupation of any part of the island, the Chinese, who bad early commercial relations with it, were a trouble to them, from their constantly increasing nambers, their unruly temper and their addivgaore tofore and driving ors out of trade. Everything that was good, that money could be made by, trade, moneylending, tax farming was in their bauds. The Datch therefore hold massacres now and then of the Chinese; and the Emperor anid it only served his subjects right, and wns the pavishment of heaven on his children who left their native laud, Daring the occupation by the British, great iniprovements in the relations of the Government to the natives were inthe contrast in the condition of the island when he left it, to what it had been before, had some influence dacing the Datch to adopt a milder an wiser system. It wis not artil 1830 that they obtained possession of the whole islud, and about 1860 slavery was totally abolis Government claims the Inrger part of the land in Java, buran Agrarian Law us been in existence for fifteen or sixteen years by which waste lands are obtainable by private persons on hereditary lenses for seventy-five yenrs and this Inw hus very groutly increased agriculture and planting in Java, and the adjacent Dutch possessions. There are now many private estates in West, and mid Java, the former, at all events, being at least nomi the property of natives of the Netherlands. Up to 1882 the system by which Government and private owners enforced ons day's gratuitous work out of even from the Inbourers on their estates, remained in full operation, but in that year a payment of one guilder per head yourly was substituted fur thegrenter part of these enforced services forthe Government, All the labour laws are rigorously administered by the Dutch officials, may be that a considerable portion of the revenue was derived frow letting this enforced Inbour to private cul be detrimental to private planters, they will probably find the Inbourers regards wages ye been, but the abolition of the enforcement may, when slavery was nbolisbed in our West Indian colonies, make the unt work only for their actual wants, culture system was for many yenrs the pride of Datchmen in the Enst. When English and other Colonies were r ing their owners, Java was a source of immense wealth to the mother country, and to her own planters, while the natives were contented and prosperous. The Dutch system of colonizing was held up as an example to England, and there is no doubt that it was founded on ® common sense view of what would make the island pay.
The Datch have wu ancient love for monopolies, and Kings and people have always liked to have shares in them. Accordingly Willem I was one of the largest shareholders in The Neder-Inndsche Handel Maatechappij, which that portion of the export trade on account of the Government, and was the means by which the culture system was introduced and carried on; and for ut least fifty years it rouped large profits from the prosperity which was thereby conferred on the island, When this Company found the capital for this system it was appointed sole agent for exporting the produce of the colony, and selling it in Europe. If this latter monopoly only secures to the Company the sale of all the produce which goes to the Netherlands, the privilege must be moat valuable ous, for we find that out of total exports of the value of 193,000,000 guilders or £16,000,000,—four fifths went to the mother country in 1884, The total export of sugar in Unt your was of the value of about £2,900,000, which showed a shrinkage of £870,000 from the figures of 1883, and of £600,000 from those of 1882, During these yenrs the coffee planters have suffered much, partly from the crime causes which have operated against cultivators and merchants in other places, but chiefly, from a destructive leaf disenso, In the case of Java, all these evils have been aggravated by the fixed value of the guilder, w contrivance for regulating the money market apon which Datch financiers prided themselves groutly for many years, and to which we lntely referred. The Government has recently been offering reserved lands for coffee planting, but with the present condition of affairs, no capitalists seem to euro for such enterprises, Coffee and sugar estates seem to be going for next to nothing, but at the one time there is something like an extension of induatrial undertakings apparent, The com. plaint is that the estates which are aald are purchased by the Chinese, and that luge and highly onitivated districts are passing into their possession, They algo appear to hold all the Govern~ ment contracts, except one which the Resident. Intely gave to a Datel firm at a high rate, considering it good policy (hat, for the suke of cbenpuens everything should not be in the hands of the Chinese.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.